BE DO HAVE
November 2024
Greetings!
Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite Holiday. Not only because my sweet potatoes insure I'll always be invited to a Thanksgiving table, but I am also an effusive hugger expressing my heartfelt thanks to the friends and family I have in my life...like you. Some of you have been on this mailing list for years. Others, we are just starting our journey. You are a blessing to me. My mission in my life is to provide value, and your consistent presence affirms that mission with every newsletter I write and every class I teach. Thank you.
As my Holiday gift to you, I'd like to share one of the most popular and impactful sessions from my class because I know it could be a very useful tool for you especially as we embrace the coming New Year. Thanks to Stephen Covey who created this coaching model, I am able to modify it for my coaching sessions where individuals are in transition in defining 'what's next' for them as they define their next chapter. I have absolute certainty that if you are on this discovery path, this is a tool that can be very helpful to you on this journey. It works!
It begins with you asking yourself: Who do I want to BE in my next chapter?
Many individuals create confusion by getting the order wrong. Instead of BE DO HAVE, they work from HAVE DO BE: once I have lost a few pounds, then I'll be fit and happy.
When my husband and I first opened Cookies from Home, it was my first time being an entrepreneur in a city that had never heard of making a living selling cookies. I had to BE this role model: confident, assured, and professional. A woman business owner selling cookies to most people that I first met assumed that I baked cookies from my home, not the 18,000 square foot baking facility we had with 5 large convection ovens, employing year-round staff of 52 people, that grew to 250 people who baked fresh cookies 24/7 at Holiday time. No frozen sweets from our Cookies from Home!
Ask yourself: Who do I want to BEcome in person, spirit and in character in this area?
- What would you focus on?
- What would your posture look like?
- How would you treat others?
- What types of relationships and opportunities would you like to attract?
DOing involves making decisions, choices, taking action to get you there. The difference between WHO YOU ARE and Who You WANT to BE is where your work is. WHAT Do You Need TO DO to BE that person to fully express yourself in this role: how would you act, talk, and dress? There is a difference between what you WANT and what you NEED. And you must be consistent to BE the person you want to BE! Doing involves making decisions, choices, taking action. BE BRAVE!
Start with ONE activity on your TO-DO list...and do it. What one thing will you DO to get closer to the outcome you HAVE?...the results of your Actions? Your Beliefs, Your Actions/Doing = the outcome you want, you will HAVE.
Please take a look at this month's Modern Elder, Penny Orloff. She followed this model as a young child and now at 76, she looks the part, acts like and IS that person.
It's all about YOU!! Remember choices you made to BE who you are today? You may not BE that person today...YET. You've learned a lot since then. As you choose who you want to BE NOW, this model can be your road map that you can begin in this New Year. You know how to reach me by email. Let me help you get there!
Featured Modern Elder*
Penny Orloff
Age 76
Penny and I met through another Modern Elder, Rodo (see previous issue here)
I love when this happens. We all are looking for role models to inspire us as we get older, right? Well, take a moment to read this Profile for great inspiration. Penny wrote up her own story here for you:
When I was a child, my mother's family was five generations deep. Some of those people lived well over 100 years. They were living history. Their stories and the stories they told of their ancestors' ancestors were part of a six-thousand-year-old tradition.
By the time I was seven, I was consciously collecting stories that had been in the family for generations. I would guard and preserve these stories for generations to come. I saw myself as 'the keeper of the lore', and knew from a very early age that, when I grew up, I would be one of those Old Storytellers.
I soaked up random memories from my grandma's childhood in Russia, my dad's memories of his long years at the orphanage, my great-grandmother's tale of her youngest child, my grandma's younger brother, Georgie, who ran off to be a gangster - which I realized later was how my mom and dad eventually met each other.
At the family table, it was understood that nobody under the minimum age of 40 had anything to say of any imaginable interest or importance. "Shut up and listen! You'll learn something!" Those people had outlived the pogroms, the post WWI influenza epidemic, the great depression, Hitler. They had survived to tell the tales. So would I.
Early on, I was aware of creating the Old Storyteller character I imagined I would be. I had lots of tribal elders as role models among my mother's family: very old musicians who'd played forever - I still have the violin that belonged to my grandfather's grandfather. Very old singers of songs from a hundred years past - I still have Russian and Yiddish songs that belonged to my grandmother's Grandma Masha.
They had their way of doing Old Age. And some day, I would do that. I would BE that.
Time has chipped away at the sharp corners, sanded down the jagged edges, smoothed out the rough and rocky terrain that was a younger Penny. I am 'colorful' and 'eccentric' now instead of weird. I realize that, even if I haven't been in a fistfight for 20 years, I'm still a bad-ass. Mess with me at your own peril.
Cinderella has become the Fairy Godmother. Sometimes, from here, I look back at the younger me, and I remind her who she'll be when the scars are healed, when the back-against-the-wall fight to the death has ended in survival, when the foolish, forever life-altering choice has given the inevitable result.
More than any successes - and there have been great successes - I realize that, during every meaningful challenge, from time to time, This Me I have become used to appear to the girl who was becoming, and said, "Hey, Pen, look who you get to be!" I always thought of myself a 'Lucky Penny' and believed in being everything I wanted to be…and I did it my way!
I didn't know all the strange details of the journey to this future Me. This is Autumn. This is the Harvest. The wounds are healed. I like my scars. My heart has been broken, and broken again. And will break again.
One of the great Gifts of Old Age is permission to tell the truth. At 76, although certainly mellower, I still feel like the snarky little me that I've always been. But, sometimes, when I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror, I'm astonished to see this old gal, this Old Storyteller I always imagined I would be.
In closing, Penny repeats a fabulous George Elliot quote she continues to live by: "It's never too late to be what you might have been." Penny ends with this question for you: "Time is all we have. What are you waiting for? What's stopping you?"
Thank you, Penny, for sharing your story with such vulnerability and wisdom. You are, indeed a great Storyteller!
If retirement or the next chapter is calling your name, if I can help you realize your vision in business and lifestyle, email me. Let's make it happen now! Susan@SusanLBrooks.com.
*Chip Conley, best-selling author and speaker, hospitality entrepreneur and leading thought leader, created The Modern Elder Academy's mission "to inspire the ability to reframe a lifetime of experience and recognize one's mastery, relevance, and value in the modern workplace." The Modern Elder* is Conley's term and effort that "liberates and inspires us to embrace wisdom as a path of growing whole, not old...The Modern Elder*marries wisdom and curiosity."
Every month this newsletter will Feature the stories and wisdom of Modern Elders*. Please send in your Modern Elder* nomination. CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT
Today, I am 78 years old, and proud of it! Paul Simon, who is now in his 80's said it best years ago: us boomers were BORN AT THE RIGHT TIME!
Yes, I was born at the right time! I'm still a hippie from the 60's, I marched for civil rights for all humans, equal rights for women, waving my bra with the best. I am proud to be living and growing in a robust marriage of 57 years. I survived motherhood, and so did my now-adult children. I was an award-winning woman business owner when there were but a few of us. I've learned a whole bunch of lessons, and more importantly, I've earned my fair share of Wisdom, too. I am Pro-Age!
According to Chip Conley, one of today's leading thought leaders: "Experience is making a comeback. Wisdom never grows old." Chip created the hallmarks of the Modern Elder*: "learning to marry wisdom and experience with curiosity, cultivating a beginner's mind so that learning never ends, exemplifying a willingness to evolve both as a student and sage." Research shows that shifting our mindset about Aging can add 7.4 happy years to a person's life.
Proud to say I am a graduate of the Modern Elder Academy as well as an active participant in Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience, and Spirit programs. As one of the creators and hosts of the Thrive@55 event, we celebrated our female community leaders who were 55+.
As long as I'm able to see the sunrise every morning and keep a curious mind, there's more living to do, so much more to learn, and so many new ways to serve. Trailblazer that I am, and always will be, I recognize my next mission: by example and demonstration I am committed to Changing the Face of Aging: One Modern Elder* at a time!
I welcome both local and national speaking engagements as well as one-on-one coaching opportunities to delve more deeply into navigating life transitions. Email me Here.
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